8-bit and robots and odd Max and Reaktor patches and custom visual software and visualizations of data packets and sound made from plants and mutant trumpets and gloves for DJing and laptop music – we’ve got quite a lineup here in New York this week.

Friday night, a live audiovisual lineup from the worlds of createdigitalmusic.com / createdigitalmotion.com invades the HOPE conference, aka Hackers on Planet Earth, the three day-long convergence of tech hacking. $10, open to all, 11-2a Friday July 18 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. It’s a live digital, technological variety show in a doomed NYC landmark hotel with an audience of famous and infamous hackers. (Think Kevin Mitnick and MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Steven Levy, all in one place.)

Here’s a look at the performers and projects. If you can’t be in New York, this should give you a little taste of the range of work people are doing here and in our community in general, and I hope to have more coverage after the event.

Ott is the creator of superDraw, a home-made software application which manipulates simple line drawings to create something beautiful and far removed from the original input.

A New York City native, and founder/label manager for the Anticipate and Microcosm labels, Ezekiel Honig concentrates on his idiosyncratic brand of emotively warm electronic-acoustic music. Using the loop as more of a tool than a rule, Honig paints outside the lines, nestling into a comfortable space between techno, house and ambient – using them as reference points from which to stray, rather than as steadfast frameworks. Drawing on the rich history of musique concrete, Honig looks to incorporate a material nature into his music by imbuing it with a host of field recording/found-sound sources in the search for a balance between digital software innovation and the physicality of the world around us. His music is one of contrast and contradiction, combining minimal, abstract tendencies with a core of timeless harmonics – pairing fuzzy chords with clunky and dirty "mishaps."

Ben Neill will present a new set of music for Neill’s newly redesigned original instrument, the mutantrumpet. Dubbed “the mad scientist of dancefloor jazz” by CMJ Magazine, Neill’s music “masterfully blurs the lines between electronic dance music and jazz sounds” (Billboard). This new set of future dub jazz is the most recent chapter in Neill’s musical evolution which has included the CDs Green Machine (Astralwerks), Triptycal and Goldbug (Verve) and Automotive (Six Degrees). Neill has also recently created a new version of his unique electro-acoustic instrument, the mutantrumpet, thanks to a residency at the STEIM studios in Amsterdam.

We’ll have visuals with Ben’s work, too; final confirmation of the visualist soon.

Bill Jones, Neill’s longtime visual collaborator, has created a new set of interactive video for the set. The imagery is primarily black and white and evokes a late-night urban vibe inspired by sci-fi noir films such as Godard’s Alphaville. The video and music are created as one hybrid form of expression, and the new capabilities of the mutantrumpet make it possible for the visual and sonic elements to be seamlessly integrated in real time.

Neill and Jones are continuing to explore ways in which the dynamics and improvisation of live musical performance can be translated across the boundaries of sound and vision. Their past projects have included the Pulse series of sound/light sculptures, widely exhibited in the 1990’s, MIDI controlled slide projector shows for Neill’s Sci-Fi Lounge tour with DJ Spooky, and Palladio, a VJ movie based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Dee.

Todd Thille, with Duncan Laurie and … houseplants.

Custom circuitry with an Arduino base will acquire electromagnetic signals from plants and use them to influence generative audio and video inside Max/MSP and Jitter.

Paris Treantafeles (aka Voltage Controlled) is an open source software expert and live visualist, regularly associated with the local 8-bit scene. He builds custom visual software for 8-bit game systems.

Animalstyle (aka Joey Mariano) has a different twist on 8-bit music: he’s a guitarist, but routes his instrument through 8-bit fuzz pedal, uses a Game Boy foot controller, and mixes guitar and 8-bit sounds.

Mary Ann Benedetto will also be visualizing and reinterpreting geeky things, likely including munging the Linux kernel visually. Expect some visual surprises – and source releases on CDM for a couple of those visual tools!

Roger Tsai

[Groovy Hand] allows DJ to use hand gesture & head shaking to manipulate music. These gestures visualize how DJ play music, and also ask for sound from audience to generate interactive entertaining experience.

In a great music performance, musician are usually encouraged to express themselves with body language and do all kinds of gestures to enhance entertaining effect (such as exaggerated move of guitarist). However, unlike other performer, DJ doesn’t have many chances to use gestures because most of the DJ instrument are not helping him showing gestures, they’re just knobs and buttons.

Also, audience doesn’t get a clue how how a DJ produce music because there are only limited visual information from DJ’s movement and gestures. Base on these observation and interview, I created [Groovy Hand], that allows DJ have fun with innovative way to manipulate music. At the same time, visual and verbal interaction between DJ and audience brings audience a new experience of DJ show.

I have no idea who this person is, but he kept tagging around, so we had to include him.

Okay, it’s me. I’ll be doing a live music set with keyboard and laptop with some custom Reaktor / Kore music tools, plus the debut of a rig for working with Nintendo’s Wii Balance Board.

I may jump in on visuals, as well.

PETER KIRN is a composer, digital musician, and media artist/visualist. Classically trained, he has extended his work into experimental music for acoustic instruments, historic instruments, and digital sound and visual technology. The Boston Globe describes his music and live visuals as "poetic" and "delicate." He has been a Digital Fellow at Dance Theater Workshop with collaborator Christopher Williams, and has taught music, interactive visuals, and technology at Harvestworks, 3rd Ward, Massachusetts College of Art, CUNY, and Sarah Lawrence. He is completing a PhD in music composition at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Be there

Where: The Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City (map); head to the main door, on your left is the entrance to Penn Pavilion and you should see a table there.

When: Friday, July 18 2008 – performances run 11pm – 2am

Cost: US$10 at the door. First come, first served. (free if you have a conference badge; contact me if you need a press badge)

There's some great stuff here. I dug your set Michael, great job! Animalstyle's gameboy 8-bit crushed guitar setup is sweet, I saw that video on YouTube a little while back. The Joshue Ott / superDraw video was cool too!!!

Very cool. One thing I noticed though is that Michael seems one step removed from interacting or "performing" with the audience. The focus seems to be in the equipment and not on the performer/audience relationship. Dunno what can be done about this – I guess we just need to start working on a new performance paradigm that allows this relationship to happen while still enabling the live looping/recording. Just an observation.

http://www.createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

Well, I always have felt that different musicians have different kinds of presence … really regardless of the technology. Some people are about direct interaction, some are all about making the party happen and getting people dancing, some are more about blissing out or gazing at your shoelaces or getting in a trance state, etc. So I agree, but I think it's also about the artist as much as any paradigm or tech issue … and it can be really tough to tell in a video.

http://www.creativebump.com Myles

Hey Peter,

Looks like Michael's site (http://una-love.com) was blocked because of a virus threat on the .htm page?

Hey Peter I would agree too. Maybe it was the more formal "concert" setting. It sort of reminded me when I used to do tape "performances" back in the 70s. Beside, he has a lot of cool stuff happening with all the toys, just makes you want to see them more.

Qua

Let us know when Una's site is virus-free. Right now (Mon July 14) still detect viruses when opening his site.